Five Moments of Intimacy: Team Machine
by Arkylie Killingstad
Summary: Bedroom intimacy isn't the only kind of intimacy. Here are five moments of nonsexual intimacy, between characters who are not in romantic pairings. The categories are (not necessarily in this order): Physical (which includes sensuality and grooming), Emotional, Experiential (which includes letting your hair down together), Secret Sharing, and Vulnerability.
1. Reese and Root: Vulnerability

"Mr. Reese, I realize that you're loath to trust her, but, in this case, there really is no choice. The two hours it will take me to get back there will be long past the point of peak efficacy—"

"All right," John cuts in. He's put up with worse pain, for longer — but the thought of him in needless pain is hurting _Harold_ , and that's not the kind of pain that John can deal with.

Root tilts her head with an indulgent little smirk to her lips. John _hates_ this. It's bad enough that he let himself get injured, bad enough that his hands will stay bandaged up for another couple of weeks and he can't open a pill bottle or tip out the right dosage or even get them into his mouth without help. Even if she did all of that in his sight, his instincts would still be screaming at him that she'd managed to switch out the pills via sleight-of-hand.

And even if she gives him the right pills, the right dose, it's still a narcotic: sleep-inducing, mind-altering. They hadn't found anything that could touch the pain without those effects, and Harold had eventually talked him into accepting the risk, reasoning that constant pain and itching would be far worse for his recovery than being… compromised.

Of course, he'd agreed to that under the impression that Harold would be doing his usual thing, handling surveillance and hacking while sitting, at most, a room or two away from John. He hadn't considered that being laid up meant that Harold might need to be a bit more active in the field, coordinating efforts with Fusco and Shaw while handling a few parts of the cases more directly.

This morning, before leaving, Harold gave him the first dose; Shaw dropped by for the next around noon. With both of them busy on the case, his babysitter is Root — because Harold has gotten to the point where he trusts her not to take advantage of John's vulnerability. She's holding a glass of water and a little cup of pills, waiting to see if he'll accept them from her hand.

Narcotics should be taken on a schedule. They're long-acting; the whole point is to keep a steady level of medication in the body at all times. If you wait until the pain is back, they're less effective; he _knows_ this. Waiting for Harold to get back, for someone he trusts to be there, is putting John at greater long-term risk. Which puts the team at risk, which puts _Harold_ at risk.

Putting Harold at risk is never acceptable.

Holding Root's stare, John opens his mouth. Fights back his own instincts as he lets her pour them in, and then sips the water and swallows them down.

"There," she says, still with that smirk. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Maddeningly, she spends the next forty minutes just sitting there, watching him, as if she knows his fears — knows that he'd sooner sleep with a rattlesnake than with Root in the building. But he's been up too long, and he knows he's lost it when he blinks and she's suddenly at the table, typing away. Giving in, he lets himself doze off long before Harold (grimy, but intact) returns.


	2. Elias and Fusco: Experiential

At Fusco's query, Elias grins. "Solitaire is _far_ from a boring game, detective."

"Nah, I mean — why _Klondike_? I'd kinda expect you to play more interesting varieties. _Scorpion_ or _Beleaguered Castle_ something. _Calculation_."

Elias blinks at him, then, chuckling, pushes all the cards together and gathers them up. "I guess I _have_ been in a bit of a rut. Which variants do you prefer?"

"Depends on circumstances. _La Belle Lucie_ is nice when you don't have table space. _Forty Thieves_ when you've got two decks and don't want to think all that much."

Elias looks at him incredulously. " _Forty Thieves_ is 'not thinking all that much'?"

Fusco shrugs. "Each new card comes up, you've got like two places you could play it. Not a lot of strategy — either you win or you lose."

"Wouldn't have pegged you as a slot-machine kind of guy." At Fusco's confusion, he clarifies, "Slots give you zero control over the outcome. Just fate. Strategy games take focus and skill."

"Can't get too focused on the game when I'm on a stakeout or babysitting a witness." _And sometimes it's easier to accept a bad deal than your own mistakes_ , though he doesn't say that. "I used to play _Freecell_ ," he adds, "but it got a bit too easy, so I switched to _Seahaven Towers_."

"That's a variant I've never heard of. Care to teach me?"

As Fusco lays out the cards, Elias studies the setup.

"There's two basic styles of Solitaire," he observes, "the kind where some cards are hidden, and the kind where you know the full layout from the beginning. Do you understand the distinction?" At Fusco's puzzled look, he gestures at the table. "Seeing where everything is makes it a _puzzle_ , with a correct solution. When some of the cards are hidden, it's more about calculated risk. Each new card revealed is a new asset, or a new hurdle to overcome. Far more interesting, to my mind."

"More life lessons? I thought you did that mostly with chess."

" _Everything_ 's a life lesson, detective. The ones that aren't, or whose lessons are too simple, are hardly worth the effort. But I don't mean that puzzles are bad," he clarifies. "A good puzzle can focus the brain, and help it tune out everything else. Being stuck in here, I've had little to do but overthink things… and I could use a break. So… explain away."

"Well," Fusco begins, "you build down by suit, and a big difference is that empty columns can only hold a King—"

By the time Finch drops by the safe house, they've gotten into competitive _Canfield_ matches.


	3. Harold and Zoe: Emotional

_**Note:** "Thys" is pronounced "tice," to rhyme with "nice." It's a Dutch surname, though the character in question was meant to be Belgian._

* * *

As Mr. Thys hugs his sons for the first time in a very trying week, Harold and Zoe watch from across the street, hidden in the shadows of the growing twilight. Their efforts have done more than spare a life; the struggling family finally has some hope again.

So when Zoe murmurs, "So, Harold… join me for a drink?" he's a bit surprised to notice that her smile is tinged with something like… pain. It's in the play of her eyebrows, the tight crinkles around the corners of her lips.

He follows her lead to a storefront squashed between a Subway and a place advertising giant sandwiches and gourmet salads. _Dead Rabbit_. He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't question it. Soon they're upstairs, and he's sitting on a red bench jutting out of the wall, with Zoe on a matching chair, and a little lantern on the square wooden table between them. Zoe takes charge of the menu as though she doesn't actually want him to see it. She asks if he likes almond, and, at his confirmation, orders him a _Pay as You Go_ and herself a _Magic Bullet_.

While they're waiting, Zoe is strangely quiet; even after the drinks have arrived, she toys with her glass for quite a while before finally taking a sip.

 _Best to lance the wound_. "Something about today's case really got to you," he observes.

Zoe frowns. "You know, the day John met me, he told me that he knew about my dad going to prison. Are you the reason he knows that?" When he nods, she sighs. "He's a free man, now, my dad. Got out a few years back. Didn't even look me up." She takes a long sip of her drink.

"Did you two correspond while he was in prison?"

"I tried to. At first. Was right at the bad point of puberty when I decided it wasn't worth the effort. I was sending him letters twice a month, and I got replies maybe three or four times a year. They weren't even… it was like he was talking to a person he didn't know, a person I had never been. Like he'd never taken the time to understand who I was."

When she stares off across the room, still toying with her glass, Harold lets her have that silence for a while.

Perhaps it's sympathy that makes him crack his shell a little; he murmurs, "When I last saw my father, I was… about to disappear forever. Go on the run. I wanted to tell him why I wouldn't be back to visit anymore. And he…" He swallows, his chin trembling; the decades haven't made the memory any easier. "He didn't care. Because he… he had Alzheimer's, and he didn't know me anymore. I wasn't even eighteen, and he'd already forgotten me."

The silence hangs between them, the shared emotion of the moment too heavy for any more words. And then Zoe sighs, and chuckles, with just a hint of pain to it. "I think that tonight," she says, "is worth more than just a single round."

Harold agrees, and she picks up the menu again.


	4. Carter and Leon: Physical

_**Content Warning:** In an effort to get Leon Tao to stand still, Carter starts describing what broken glass can do to you. It's a bit creepy, but I figure she's dealt with enough car-crash victims to have picked up these kinds of details._

* * *

"Look, I just don't think it was that big a deal—"

"Stand still, okay? I don't want to cut you."

"Right, right." Leon holds his ground for all of eight seconds before he's gesturing again, getting ready to pace. Carter puts a hand on his shoulder and he freezes.

"Leon. When this is over, how badly do you want to be bleeding?"

She manages to dig out a few more pieces while he considers the notion. "How badly am I bleeding now?"

"Superficial cuts. But there's a lot of glass here, so—"

"Can't I just wash it out later?"

Carter huffs, frustrated. "Do you even _know_ how to get glass shards out of your hair safely?"

"Do I look like the kind of guy who deals with broken glass a lot?" Carter's just going for a big piece when his head jerks up unexpectedly. "Huh. You know, I never realized it before, but I totally _am_ a guy who deals with broken glass a lot. I've even been thrown through a window," he adds, gesturing grandly with his arms.

Carter frowns, tempted to grab him by the nape just to keep him from moving. Instead, she digs a comb out of her purse. "How badly did you get hurt?"

"Thought I broke my arm, at first. Just a sprain, kinda bruised up. Really hard to code when you've only got one working wrist," he adds, turning again to face her.

She wishes she had his energy; it'd be useful on days when she's really dragging. Of course, it's also useful to know how to _hold still_.

"Listen," she says, feeling too much like a mom right now. "If I don't get this stuff out of your hair right now, you're gonna have to do it at home. A shower is gonna send that glass right to the floor for you to step on. Might wash some into your eyes. Ever seen a scratched cornea?"

"Uh…"

"And glass can stay under the skin for _years_. Like a splinter. Think about the scrubbing motion you make while washing your hair. You want to grind broken glass into your scalp?"

"Uh… no."

"So stand. The hell. _Still_."


	5. Shaw and Marconi: Secret Sharing

_**Content Warning:** Rough language (just a little), Shaw actually killing people (deaths are out of focus) and disrespecting a body, mention of canon details involving death (how Shaw's dad and Marconi's dad died)._

* * *

After securing their position, Marconi and Shaw pull the guards' bodies out of sight behind a bulldozer and stop to catch their breath. The activity at the other end of the worksite probably kept the attention off their little bullet exchange; Shaw doesn't expect that they'll meet much resistance getting into the compound, though she's not about to let her guard down. It's a rare case when Finch calls in this kind of help, and even rarer when he lets them take the gloves off.

The blood dripping down her arm catches her notice a little before her brain catches up to the pain. Not a lot of pain, but noticeable.

"Fuckers," she says, without much emotion, and casually kicks one of the bodies in the face.

Marconi smirks. "I like a dame who don't cry over a little bullet wound."

"I don't cry," she replies, glancing around for enemies as they enter the warehouse.

"Learn that in training?"

Takes her a moment to decide whether to be annoyed by the question. Marconi's staying just as alert as she is, and keeping his voice low, or off, as needed. Not as disciplined as the CIA, but that's a bit much to ask of a mobster.

Unexpectedly, she finds herself answering. "Ever seen a nine-year-old lose her dad? Mine died right in front of me. Car crash. EMT's trying to tell me he's dead, and I'm like, oh, and ask for a sandwich. Kinda freaked him out. Other kids, now, that might've been shock, but me, that's my norm."

The conversation pauses while the body count goes up by half a dozen, and then they're at the destination, the control room near the back. The bodies get piled in the corner, and Shaw fires off a quick text that they're in position. Now it's just a waiting game.

"I laughed when my dad died," Marconi offers. "'Course, I'm the one who slit his throat."

It's not the most obvious connection, but she goes with her gut: "Give you that scar?"

Marconi huffs. "Yeah."

"Must've been a right bastard."

"Yeah, he was that."

There's the space of a breath before the explosions start, and Marconi breaks into a grin. "Guess that's our cue."

Shaw wonders what it would be like to _feel_ so intensely that it bleeds out all over your face.


End file.
